These are the sketches we have produced whilst planning our Digipak, and what will appear on it. We have chosen to encorporate both the delapidated house that we used for shooting outside, and also the location we used to film inside. We also decided to couple these with both the prism logo, taken from the Dark Side of the Moon album, as well as the Pink Floyd typography as used on their wall album. I believe the combination of these will be successful in combining our modern take on The Great Gig in the Sky whilst making a clear reference to the original work of Pink Floyd.

Digipak Research

Whilst in the planning stages of our Digipak, we chose to create a short questionable in order to gain information from our target audience, and hopefully gain an understanding of what the would appreciate/expect to see in our Digipak artwork. Hopefully this will improve our understanding of our target audience, therefore allowing us to make a product which is best suited to their wants and needs. For our research we interviewed 30 people with differing tastes in music, to gain a widespread idea of what consumers wanted.

This pie-chart suggests that a large percentage of our target audience believes that the appearance of the Digipak artwork is extremely important. This is extremely helpful knowledge, as it means that equal time must be spent on perfecting the album artwork, as it could be said that this is equally important as the music video, considering that if the appearance is not liked, it may then not be purchased - thus making the video worthless.

With new media technology, and modes of attaining music videos changing rapidly to downloading, it is important to understand the market for original style Digipaks. Our research suggests that if the Digipak is aesthetically pleasing, consumers will be equally willing to purchase this (if not more so) than merely downloading the music video from websites such as iTunes. This helps us understand that it is especially important to create a aesthetically pleasing artwork in order to gain these new media technology consumers. 

Often Digipaks - particularly older generations, include lyrics from the tracks featured. However, this takes up a large amount of the Digipak which can no longer be use imagery and various other information. Therefore, using the information we collected, it is clear that the larger percentage of customers believe that lyrics are unnecessary. The remaining 7 researchers however would not necessarily not buy the product if lyrics do not appear.

 

Much to our expectations, a huge percentage of the people we interviewed believed that it was necessary to reflect the video that appears inside of the product. Our basic understanding was that this was needed as the consumer wishes to have a level of understanding of what will appear inside the product, to give them more knowledge of what they are purchasing.

A large percentage of the people we questioned agreed that it was a good idea to include iconography from previous albums released by the artist we have chosen (Pink Floyd.) This is due to the fact that using iconography gains instant attraction from pre-established fans of the band, thus possibly gaining a purchase just due to the wish to gain new products from the band, but also possibly in terms of collectable items.

Album Artwork Planning

An area that we have focused on after the draft of video has been completed is the important task of designing the ancillary tasks - the album artwork for our Digipak and the promotional poster. It is important to combine the ideas that feature within the music video, whilst also appealing to shoppers wishing to pick the video off the shelf. Therefore, whilst in the planning stages we decided it was a good idea to use location shots within the Digipak and the poster. This is because the location truly portrays the messages and values we wish to suggest within the music video, such as loneliness and depression. Using this location, both the outside, but also coupled with inside shots will hopefully suggest isolation. The dilapidation of the house merely adds to this feeling of isolation and lack of hope.

However, not only do we need to add imagery that relates to the video, but also the band Pink Floyd. This is because we wish to attract the worldwide audience that are already familiar with Floydian styles and imagery. Therefore, we believed it would be successful to incorporate a logo, such as that of the prism appearing on The Dark Side of the Moon in order to attract the pre-established audience.

Storm Thorgerson II: Album Research

The albums above are the most recognised of Pink Floyd's album covers, created by Storm Thorgerson. All extremely different, and extremely unusual/random, it is easy to see the reason for Thorgerson's fame, and continued working with Pink Floyd. The great diversity means that it extremely difficult to follow in the footsteps of Storm - particularly when looking at images such as the front cover of Floyd's Animals album, (where they suspended a inflated pig above a power station.) However, due to the randomness of his artwork, it is impossible to create two alike images, and therefore this does not detract from the artwork we have created.

Digipak

Considering that one of our two ancillary tasks is to complete a Digipak, it was quintessential to research previous layouts and designs for various bands; despite their genre, in order to find inspiration to create our own, giving it a interesting, yet rounded, and true to the genre case. Differing from a simple CD jewel case, a Digipak features a folded design, often made from card, placing the CD central to the design. This therefore gives ample, if not excessive room to feature both imaging and text relating towards our feature band - Pink Floyd. 

Notorious for their unique and dynamic album artwork, it's extremely hard to follow the works of Storm Thorgerson, however, due to the nature of the song we are focusing on (The Great Gig in the Sky) the messages featured require imagery different to most of Storm's work - which is normally extremely colourful and random, so it was not such a challenge as to compete with his infamous artwork.

Creating an interesting and bold artwork for the Digipak is completely essential to the success of the piece, just due to shoppers taking interest of the album placed on a store shelf. Not only do we need to make the artwork aesthetically pleasing though, but also directly related to the messages and values present in our piece / the song - The Great Gig in the Sky. Also, the artwork still needs to be relevant to Pink Floyd, stepping up to their massive reputation, therefore in hope to gain more attention to the completed Digipak. In order to do this, therefore, we decided that it would be a good idea to incorporate reference to previous works, and the general bands expectations. This will gain immediate audience respect and appreciation, particularly if any iconic symbol of theirs is used - for example the Pink Floyd prism taken from the Dark Side of the Moon album. This would generally sell albums just due to its worldwide understanding and presence. 

Comfortably Numb

After researching music of a similar genre and meaning I stumbled across another great Pink Floyd track; comfortably numb. The video comes to a great climax starting with the second guitar solo, showing a man reaching the end of his tether, and trashing his apartment due to great anger. This video is taken from Pink Floyd's film: 'The Wall' and is highly relevant to our music video, due to image of a person taking out huge anger on inanimate objects. This video has given us a great deal of ideas as to what we could 'destruct' in our video. Although it may not be possible to throw a television set from a high story window, it may be possible to recreate smashing a mirror. These are ideas that need to be experimented with, and could lead to a piece with a great deal more of emotion.  

Six Shooter

The short film above is highly relevant to the themes we are aiming to discuss in our music video. This theme is death, and more particularly; how people deal with death. This is highly relevant as our film portrays a man's struggle and collapse with the death of his girlfriend. Similar to the woman shown throwing herself from the train door. Therefore, this film shows how death of a loved one can have a devastating effect on the people closest to them, and this is something we aim to represent in our music video. Although there will be no dialogue to help portray this idea, our aim is to use both the emotion of the track, but also strong acting to make this message clear.

Practise Editing: II

This is an extremely rough practise edit that we were advised to complete, however, due to the fact that a shot such as this would definitely not appear in our music video - as it goes against the genre we are focusing on, we spent little time perfecting the piece, and after attaining a limited number of shots, we worked with the shots that we had. However, this still shows our ability to complete complex editing techniques such as that shown.

Coffee & TV: Narrative

Using Roland Barthes narrative codes, we have analysed Blur's Coffee & TV music video. The aim was to identify Barthes' 5 codes from within the video and state these. These codes are as follows: Enigma, Symbolic, Cultural, Action and Semic.

The representation of the Enigma code is shown by the travels of the milk carton - why and where is he going? A Cultural refernce is the image of the missing person (band member) on the side of the carton. This has been lifted from American culture. The Action code is shown through the squashing of the female milk carton, much to the disdain of the protagonist milk carton. Semic code refers to the idea of a young person running away for their home - the idea that the music video entails. Finally, the Symbolic code reffers to the idea of a 'dangerous world' particularly if you are a milk carton...

These codes are particularly helpful in understanding a narrative succesfully. The ideas gained from this research can be put into good use within our music video, helping us to achieve a more rounded product that fulfils our aims of narrative structure - of which our chosen song emphasises.

Filming Images

We have now begun the principal photography for our music video, after completing the exteremely difficult task of finding both an actor and a location. Hopefully in will be possible to get the bulk of our filming done it one hit, considering that the video is confined to mostly this location. We were also constrained by time as we filmed the piece during darkness in order to achieve the appropriate dim lighting. These are some of the images that I took whilst filming. These give an insight into the location and how we prepared it in order for the video to match the ideas that we had. The floor suggests the amount of rubbish that we used to create a dirty looking effect; which was crucial in suggesting our characters state. Here our direct influence from Pink Floyd's feature length music video The Wall can also be seen through the placing of a chair central to the room for our protagonist to sit, surrounded by various props to throw and destroy during the anger sequence. Unfortunately we were unable to find an old TV due to Saffron Walden dump not allowing the removal of electrical appliances from the site, this would have added to the image, however, it was not completely necessary. The last image also shows how we used lighting to give the piece a drearier feel, rather than using the main light for the room. 

Locations

Ultimately, a perfect location would be key in order to promote the ideas present within the song we are focusing on - The Great Gig in the Sky. Therefore, after being recommended a suitable location, we travelled to Great Dunmow, to find an extremely dilapidated house. This would be desirable as it would promote the ideas of death featured in the song. However, after exploring the house, it was clear that not only was the house in such a poor condition that it would be excessive, but it was also clearly unsafe. Therefore we merely gained some exterior long shots of the house that we could try and incorporate into our piece, considering that the house's exterior was acceptable. However, this still means that a new location is required, and due to the conditions required, this is extremely difficult.  

Practise Editing: I

After studying some of the worked created by a group called 'The Vixens' on the OCR media blog, their use of a four way screen split was an appealing use of editing and was successfully within their piece. We have been asked to try and recreate a shot such as this in order to practise the skills we currently have in editing. It could be possible that we will eventually be able to use a technique such as this within our final product, and even if this does not happen, it is still a good use of practise.

Mise-en-Scène

In order to film our piece successfully we had to assure that we matched the genre connotations succesfully and therefore we required a large amount of planning, for example the use of costume and props. For this we decided to use rough clothing, in order for our protagonist to appear somewhat dirty, to reflect the idea that he has given up with life. This emotion is portrayed by clothes such as old ripped jeans, and used dirty trainers, therefore giving connotations of this depression. 


Location was also extremely important in portraying these connotations, therefore we used rubbish such as old bottles, fast food cartons etcetera in order to make the location appear dirty and unmanaged. We have also found objects to appear in the room which will be broken from our protagonist throwing them during the anger sequence. Other objects that we may use to destroy are an old style TV that we could possibly pick up from a dump site, or find in an attic.

Actor!

After a great deal of trouble trying to find a suitable actor, we have finally decided on Charlie Collett to play the role of our protagonist. Charlie is an extremely good actor, and this is something we require in trying to suggest the emotion that the song entails - this is something that would not be achievable from an actor with immaturity and a lack of understanding of the emotion. Although in our year at sixth-form, our actor appears to be older than this, therefore not only appealing to younger audiences, but not looking as though he has purely been lifted as a last resort.